May 14 - 1955 - The Warsaw Pact is Signed

The Warsaw Pact, officially the Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation, and Mutual Assistance, was created because the Soviet Union was extremely worried that Germany would re-militarize. Of course, since 1945, no country like "Germany" existed, but instead there was the Communist East Germany and Capitalist West Germany. Still, once West Germany joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization upon gaining full sovereignty in 1955, Soviet leaders decided to do something. That something was gathering its eights satellite states in Eastern Europe, Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Romania, at a meeting in Warsaw to create a mutual defense pact. Although all of these states had individual treaties with the Soviet Union, the Warsaw Pact formalized everything even more. In a way, it all worked as it was designed to. There was never an open war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact countries, but instead they faced off along the lines of espionage and proxy wars. Indeed, the Warsaw Pact outlived Communist control in most of its member states, such was the strength of the treaty.